Activists for military homosexual groups have filed amicus briefs opposing the Masterpiece Cakeshop in its appeal to the US Supreme Court. The bakery was accused of violating state law when it declined to create a cake for a same-sex “wedding” (see records of the case).

Apparently fearing a victory for Masterpiece Cakeshop would inhibit homosexuals’ rights within the military, Ashley Broadway — a self-described homosexual “devout Christian” — of the American Military Partner Association said (with authority):

A business that is open to the public should be open to public — period. LGBT service members and their families sacrifice so much around the world for our country, and the last thing they deserve is to be denied service here at home simply because of who they are.

That’s great. It also has nothing to do with the legal case. Masterpiece Cakeshop was “open to the public — period,” and it was happy to serve gay couples — and had previously done so. The only thing it would not do was make them a wedding cake, because to do so would have made them a participant in the celebration of sin.  It would have violated their faith.

Matt Thorn, speaking for another military related homosexual activist group, OutServe-SLDN, contradicted himself in an attempt to redefine religious liberty:

Religious freedom gives us the right to live according to the dictates of our own conscience. It doesn’t give us the right to impose those beliefs on people who want to buy our cakes.

Religious freedom either gives us the right to live according to our faith or it doesn’t, it can’t be both.  And, clearly, declining to provide a specific service is not an imposition of beliefs on anyone.

In fact, the opposite is true: requiring someone to provide that service is imposing beliefs — on the bakery. Worse, it is the government trying to impose beliefs, something the Constitution prohibits.

How could anyone remotely consider that legal in the United States?  Thorn certainly does:

We must never go back to a time where signs displayed in their windows said, ‘you are not welcome here’. Our constitution [sic] does not enshrine discrimination.

The first sentence about welcome signs is a non sequitur. The gay couple in question was perfectly welcome in the bakery, and the bakers were happy to provide them plenty of goods and services — save one, in keeping with their protected religious beliefs.

The second sentence is simply ignorant. Besides the whole amended “3/5ths compromise,” the very idea that a document needs to provide legal protection for ideas or actions has the effect of “enshrin[ing] discrimination.”

The US Constitution does not say that one is allowed to exercise his religion, speech, assembly, etc. without government interference only if those actions or beliefs are non-discriminatory. In fact, such protections imply those things will likely be offensive or even discriminatory. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t need protection inscribed within the very “supreme law of the land.”

No person or business owner should be required to violate their religious tenets to join the marketplace. If the marketplace chooses to punish them for their ideals, so be it, but a pre-emptive attack by those who dislike their beliefs — aided by the government itself — demonstrates nothing but intolerance and bigotry.

When the government chooses to endorse society’s changing morals and then enforces those morals on those whose religious beliefs are contrary, it violates the explicit constitutional restriction that the government may not “inhibit the free exercise” of religion. There can be few clearer examples of “inhibiting the exercise” than to require the opposite exercise that one’s faith demands.

Broadway is right about one thing, though. A loss at the Supreme Court for the homosexual movement would be a significant speedbump in their agenda, and it would run the risk of strengthening religious liberty protections both in society and in the US military.

Neo-sexual activists can’t abide men and women of faith whose mere presence reminds them of their sin, so they must act to eliminate the perceived source of their conviction.

That conviction, though, comes not from a bakery, nor a military chaplain, nor a photographer, but from someone far Higher. May we pray that one day they would be open to that conviction and repent.

Until then, may we support and pray for those who are fighting for liberty, true tolerance, and the right for all to believe and live their lives according to their beliefs.

ADVERTISEMENT

---

---